


Christmas Cookies

by RowboatCop



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Coulson and Skye being orphans with nowhere to go at Christmas, Coulson and Skye comforting each other, Coulson and Skye making their own traditions, Coulson and his ridiculous crush on Skye, Coulson in the kitchen, Coulson's Cakewalk, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fingering, Kitchen Sex, Oral Sex, Sex, Skye and her equally ridiculous crush on Coulson, mention of Coulson's torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-01
Updated: 2015-01-04
Packaged: 2018-03-04 15:59:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3073745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RowboatCop/pseuds/RowboatCop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Coulson and Skye make a new Christmas tradition (which involves baking and sex). Told in three Christmases -- 2013 (after 'Magical Place'), 2014 (after 'What They Become'), and future 2015. </p><p>Coulson Cakewalk Christmas 2014 prompts: flour, Christmas tree, secret Santa, shopping.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Christmas 2013

**Christmas 2013**

He’s been chasing down Fury, looking for his damn file, since his team rescued him from the middle of the desert, so it’s understandable that when he comes up for air he’s surprised to realize that it’s Christmas.

The entire team is taking a few days off the Bus, but of course Coulson has nowhere to go — no living relatives, no friends that know he’s alive. His life is entirely on the Bus, and he hasn’t planned so much as a vacation. He walks down the stairs from his office to see the team off and finds himself joining Skye as everyone bustles around them.

“Hi.” She greets him almost warily, as though she thinks he might not want to talk to her, and Coulson frowns.

“Hi. Are you not packing?”

“Nowhere to go,” she answers with a shrug. “May said you’d probably stay here and that I could, too. If that’s okay. I know you’re busy —”

“It’s fine,” he assures her, at a loss for why she’s so unsure of herself. Skye is _never_ this unsure of herself.

He’s been wrapped up in his own search for the last two weeks, that’s true enough, but Skye is supposed to feel at home here.

“I’ll stay out of your way,” she promises, and Coulson’s frown deepens.

“You don’t have to do that. We can do something together.”

“Like what?” She looks so hopeful, and he notices for the first time how her eyes run over him — like she’s drinking him in, like she’s still not completely satisfied that he’s alive and well and here _with her_.

“What do you normally do for Christmas?”

Skye laughs at that and shakes her head.

“I don’t really have a ‘normally’ at Christmas. I haven’t celebrated it since I left St. Agnes.”

He feels colossally insensitive because he knows quite well that Skye has been more or less homeless for the last eight — nine? — Christmases. She doesn’t seem upset with him, though.

“What about when you were younger?”

“Before I left, I was usually at St. Agnes for Christmas. We would have to sit through an extra long mass and sometimes we got a chocolate orange?”

It’s frustrating that he still feels such _rage_ at the thought of Skye’s childhood, at the fact that this is yet another thing that SHIELD is hiding. (At the fact that he, too, is hiding things from Skye, telling himself that keeping the picture of the mutilated SHIELD agent is done out of love. He wonders if Fury feels the same way about his file.)

“There was this one family I was with one year — the Webers. We all made cookies together.” She smiles wistfully at the memory, and he wonders if it’s her one good memory of the season.

“Let’s do that,” he offers.

“What?”

“Let’s make cookies. We can decorate them. It’ll be fun.”

Her eyebrows draw together as she examines him, and then she slowly smiles as she reads his sincerity.

“Yeah?”

He hopes she doesn’t think he’s doing her a favor, that spending time with her is some chore. The truth is that he likes being with her, likes it probably more than he should, and moments like this one — moments when his desire to be alone with her are in perfect accord with the situation — are good ones.

“Yeah.”

Coulson stands and holds out his hand to her. Skye grabs it and lets him pull her up from her seat — he keeps his grip on her hand as they reach the staircase down to the hangar deck and towards Lola.

 

—

 

“This is way too much stuff,” Skye observes as she looks down at the contents of their cart. “How many cookies are we making?”

Coulson almost flushes as he really notices how much flour and butter and sugar he has dumped in the cart.

“A lot,” he answers with a shrug. “It’s tradition.”

“Tradition?”

He swallows and looks away from her, focusing on the bag of sugar in their cart.

“After my dad died, my mom and I didn’t have the money to celebrate Christmas like we did before. But we still made dozens and dozens of cookies — we’d take them to all the neighbors, use them for all the secret Santa gifts, and I’d eat way too many of them.”

He’s afraid for a minute that Skye is going to point out that the live in an airplane and don’t actually have any neighbors, don’t have any secret Santa gifts to give, but she just smiles.

“I like that tradition. Thank you for sharing.”

She’s so sincere in her thanks, so happy with this one little nugget from him, that it’s almost frustrating. Coulson’s never been a sharing man — at least, not about personal things like this. And he’s always appreciated being around people who don’t expect him to share much, which Skye doesn’t, but something about her gratitude makes him feel like he should share more. Like no one should be that grateful for a tiny story of his childhood.

Sometimes, he thinks there’s very little he wouldn’t tell her if she looked at him just right.

“You know I have no idea how to make cookies, right? I can cut out shapes and decorate them, but I’ve never baked in my life.”

“I’ll teach you.”

“Good.”

Skye bumps her shoulder against his as they collect sprinkles and icing and cookie cutters in way too many shapes. His face almost hurts from smiling — something he hasn’t done much of lately — and he leans into Skye as they walk the aisles together.

 

—

 

“So, what first?”

The galley area on the Bus is tiny and totally filled up by the excess of baking materials they have spread across the counter space. It’s really too small for this, but that’s hardly going to stop them.

“You’ll need to take off your jewelry, and make sure you’re wearing something machine washable.”

Skye twists off the two rings she’s wearing today and then looks down at her cotton t-shirt and back up at him with a raised eyebrow.

“Does that mean you’re going to lose the suit?”

“Of course,” he answers, trying to sound like he’s in the habit of undressing in front of pretty young women.

He’s still holding her gaze when he shrugs out of his jacket, though he turns quickly to drape it over a chair. Even when he’s not looking at her, though, he can feel her frankly appraising gaze run down his body. It’s too embarrassing to meet her eyes when she’s looking at him like that (there’s a sinking feeling that he doesn’t want to think about too much, which suggests that the embarrassment is because of how much he likes it when she looks at him like that).

Really, though, he knows it’s all part of her being happy he’s alive, and he’s not going to read anything else into it.

While she continues to watch, he unbuttons the cuffs on his shirt and rolls his sleeves up to his elbows, readying himself to get messy.

“You should take off your tie, too.”

His eyes dart up to meet hers, confusion at the suggestion outweighing his embarrassment, and he flushes at the dark gaze she has leveled at him.

Coulson swallows and holds her eyes as he reaches up to the knot at his neck and slowly pulls it out until he’s sliding the tie out of his collar. He drapes it over his jacket, but Skye’s eyes stay locked at his neck as he unbuttons his collar and the first button down on his shirt.

Skye exhales when he finishes, and he thinks for a moment she’s going to say something. She doesn’t, though. Instead, her gaze falls to the ingredients on the counter, and he can see her gathering her wits as she examines their purchases.

He pulls down mixing bowls, ready to get started and leave this awkwardness behind them.

“You mix the dry ingredients,” Coulson instructs, handing her one of the bowls.

“Okay.” She takes it without looking up at him, and Coulson frowns.

“Skye,” he whispers her name, pausing until she looks up at him. “Are you okay?”

“Are you?”

He can’t tell whether she’s more defensive or worried, but either way he can’t help but give her a gentle smile.

“Yes. Thanks to you.”

Her eyes lock onto his at that, and he can feel her taking him in again. There’s a long, serious pause between them when Coulson is sure that Skye is going to say something — something big, something important — but instead her lips curve upwards and she nods.

“So, how much flour?”

Things lighten up as Skye measures dry ingredients while he mixes the wet, and they work well together until they’ve got a section of the cookie dough turned out onto the floured countertop while the rest chills. Skye takes ahold of the rolling pin and begins to flatten it, and Coulson can’t quite stop himself from standing too close while he watches. (He tells himself that the galley is small, so of course they’re close together, but it’s not a very good lie.)

“How thick should it be?”

“About a quarter inch,” he answers, his lips too close to her ear.

She shudders visibly, and Coulson can feel himself starting to get aroused, so he takes a step back. Still, though, his eyes are stuck on the way her hands are strong and steady as she rolls out the dough.

“What shape do you want to make first?”

“Hmm?”

“Coulson,” she grins at him, waving her hand in front of his face, “what shape do you want to make?”

He fumbles through the pile of cookie cutters and comes out with a Christmas tree. When he lays it on the dough, Skye sets her hand over his, and they press the shape down together.

He should move his hand — Coulson is very aware of the fact that he should move his hand and step back again — but he can’t gather the willpower to do it. Skye’s fingers slide through his as they move together, and it’s never occurred to him that cutting out sugar cookies could be a _sensual_ activity, but it really is.

When they’ve pressed out about two dozen trees, Skye lifts her hand off of his, and he can see it quiver slightly before she steps back and lets him move the cookies onto two baking sheets and then into the oven. It’s hard to focus, hard to force himself to be slow and careful as he deals with the cookies, hard to force himself not to just kiss her.

Not even the blast of heat from the oven turns his thoughts away from her, so when he backs away from the oven, it’s not entirely surprising to find himself pushed against the counter. Skye’s chest presses against him, but even though she brings her lips within an inch of his, she doesn’t actually kiss him. It’s like she’s leaving it up to him — making a silent offer and waiting for him to accept.

As though there’s a chance he wouldn’t.

Coulson leans in and kisses her quite desperately, pleased when her lips are just as urgent against his. It’s surprising when her fingers move quickly to the front of his shirt, opening the line of buttons rapidly as they kiss. She’s tugging his undershirt over his head before he’s really had a chance to process what she’s doing, and then Skye’s forehead is pressed into his chest, up against the scar.

His breath catches in his throat as Skye rests there, and he understands for the first time what’s going on. She heard him, he knows, heard him begging for death. And Skye is smart enough to understand that the memory machine wasn’t about playing tricks or messing with his head; she’s smart enough to understand that he meant it.

It’s not like he knows how to reassure her, though, that even if those pleas were real, they were in the past. Even if he’s resentful of the fact that Director Fury made this call, did _something_ to him that he doesn’t understand, he’s not about to end his life. He’s not about to wish away the life he’s got _now_.

“Skye,” he whispers her name as he strokes a hand through her hair.

“I’m really glad you’re here,” she tells him as she pulls back to look into his eyes. “I hate that _this_ happened, but I’m just —”

“I know. So am I.”

“Let me show you.”

She kisses him again as her right hand trails down his chest to cup him through his trousers, and Coulson groans into her mouth.

“You don’t have to —”

“Coulson,” she chastises him between kisses. “I _want_ to. Let me.”

He nods, almost helplessly, as Skye works his belt and fly open and then lets his pants and boxers slide down to his ankles, so her fingers can wrap around his cock. Her hand feels good — just a little bit cool and soft — and he grips the back of her head as he reels her into another kiss while she jerks him off.

It’s hard not to groan in disappointment when she pulls away, but his head crashes back into the top cupboards behind him when she instead sinks to her knees and wraps her lips around his cock.

“Christ, Skye,” he grunts as he grips the counter, desperately trying to keep himself from collapsing from the overload of sensation.

Her mouth is warm and slow and deliberate as she moves over him, and when Coulson finally looks down at her, he’s greeted with warm, wide-open eyes looking up at him. It’s impossible to restrain the need to touch her when she looks up at him like that, and his right hand lands on the side of her head as she moves.

Skye tenses slightly for a moment, but then relaxes when Coulson doesn’t push or pull or force her head. Instead, he strokes the side of her face undemandingly, not trying to control her pace, though it takes a huge amount of self control to keep from thrusting forward into her mouth.

“Skye,” he whispers her name as he watches her, partly because he’s always liked saying her name and partly because he can’t quite believe it’s real. “Skye.”

She pulls back, lets his cock bob just beyond her lips for a moment as she smiles up at him.

“Coulson.”

The sound of his name from her lips is too much, and he has no control over it when his hips thrust forward, pushing his cock back into her mouth.

“Skye.”

His head hits the cabinets behind him again as she sucks hard on the head of his cock, and he leaves it there as he breathes deeply, trying to control himself at least a little.

“Coulson,” she whispers his name, popping her lips off of him momentarily. “Stay with me.”

“Fuck.” He groans as he tilts his head down to watch again as she parts her lips and draws him back into her mouth.

Coulson pulls his hands away from her face in order to grip the counter again, not trusting himself as he feels the familiar tightening behind his balls.

“Close.” He warns her, and he has to grip the counter harder when she picks up her pace. “Gonna —”

He doesn’t even have a chance to finish before he’s pulsing against her tongue, making it almost impossible to keep his eyes open and focused on her. At the same time, though, he couldn’t force himself to look away.

“Skye,” he moans her name through his orgasm. “Skye, Skye.”

He can feel her tongue working against the underside of his cock as he comes down, and his right hand lands on the side of her head again, brushing through her hair as he tries to regulate his breathing. She lets him slide out of her mouth, but makes no move to stand up as Coulson strokes her hair.

Coulson is the one who tugs her to her feet, one hand at the back of her neck as the other grips her hand, and he’s the one who pulls her into a kiss when he can finally reach her.

Their kiss is cut short, though, as the smell of burning cookies cuts through their senses.

“Shit,” he grunts into her mouth as Skye pulls away and darts to the oven.

Coulson barely gathers his wits enough to tug up his pants as he watches Skye dig out an oven mitt and remove the blackened cookies from the heat. The truth is that he couldn’t care less about the cookies, not as the implications of what’s just happened start to sink in.

He misses whatever Skye is saying as she dumps the burned cookies in the trash, but her smile fades when she turns to look at him.

“Coulson,” she calls him out of his thoughts. “That was just...that was just for you, okay? It’s not…” She stops and rolls her eyes at herself. “It’s not some big _thing_ you have to worry about.”

He nods slowly, disbelieving, but Skye steps across the kitchen and grabs his hand, pulls him back to their cookie-making area.

“You don’t want —”

“I want to make cookies.” She raises her eyebrows at him, like _duh_ this is what she wants, and it’s almost weird how easily things return to normal as she extracts another ball of dough from the fridge.

 

 

 

 


	2. Christmas 2014

**Christmas 2014**

“We need at least two of those and those and those,” Skye points to packages of multicolored decorator’s icing — a  _lot_ of it — but Coulson just nods and puts it in the basket as she proceeds down the aisle.

When he catches up to her, she thuds an eight pound sack of flour into the cart, along with the ten pounds of powdered sugar and butter, four dozen eggs, and other cookie-baking paraphernalia.

“Skye.” He finally has to say something, just  _has_ to. “Don’t you think this is a little excessive?”

“Isn’t that what Christmas is all about? Excessive food? Especially excessive desserts?”

He frowns at her, narrowing his eyes as he tries to see past the plastered-on smile.

“It’s just the two of us at the Playground.”

She stops smiling, and it occurs to him how close she is to a breakdown. He has known it was there, of course. He’s been waiting for weeks, since they crawled out from the tunnels under San Juan, for some crack to appear in the armor in which she has cloaked herself. She’s been all fake smiles and overly-solicitous helpfulness towards everyone else, and it has frightened him to see Skye so seemingly unconcerned about what happened to her down there (to see her not dealing with it). He’s watched her comfort Simmons over Trip’s death, but he hasn’t seen  _her_ mourn her friend

“Skye, we have to talk.”

Coulson lays a gentle hand on her arm, just above her elbow, but he removes it quickly when she freezes under his touch.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers as he pulls back, and Coulson shakes his head adamantly.

“You don’t have to be sorry. I should know better.”

He gets it — he understands so, so well what it is to feel uncomfortable in your skin, to hate the feeling of being touched because it reminds you of your betraying body. He knows, too, that she wakes up two nights out of every three from nightmares of being trapped in a shell of rock; he can see how the weight of his hand on her could be too much to handle.

“No, you shouldn’t. You shouldn’t have to feel bad because you touched me.”

“Skye —”

“I’ve been thinking I should leave.”

It stops him cold, like he’s being squeezed from the inside, and he can’t even process why the thought of Skye leaving hurts so incredibly much.

“Leave?”

“Not forever,” she backs off a little bit, obviously able to see how much this bothers him. “Just… I’m not sure it’s safe for everyone.”

A woman in a Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer sweater, the kind with a little LED light built into the nose, bumps her cart against theirs, and Skye and Coulson scrunch to the side of the aisle.

“We should talk about this when we get home.”

Skye nods and looks down at the huge quantity of baking supplies they have crammed into their cart. When she looks back up, she’s seems skeptical and not a little heartbroken.

“We’ll just bake a lot of cookies,” Coulson reassures her, though he’s not sure whether he’s trying to excuse the excess ingredients or just make her feel better. “Eating too many cookies is part of the fun, right?”

She smiles a little at that.

  
—

 

“What do you think you’ll gain from leaving?”

He asks the question out of the blue as he sprinkles flour on the countertop and drops the ball of chilled dough down to be rolled out.

“Protecting everyone here?” She says it like it’s so obvious, but Coulson shakes his head as he sets to work with the rolling pin.

“That’s not what I asked. What do you think  _you’ll_ gain?”

“You underestimate the danger I pose.”

“I don’t. I’m aware of the fact that you could accidentally cause an earthquake —”

“I almost did last night, did you know that?”

“When you had a nightmare, you mean?”

“Oh, god,” she drops the cookie cutters and steps back from the counter. “Are you spying on me again?”

“No,” he’s almost sharp with his dismissal. “I don’t need to spy on you when I can  _hear_ you wake up most nights. Before you talk about leaving, Skye, you need to address this.”

“What? Mr. ‘I didn’t want to wake you’ wants me to address my nightmares?”

Coulson swallows against the restrained anger in her raised eyebrows.

“I cut you out of what was happening to me, and it was stupid.”

“Yes,” she agrees, “it was.”

“So don’t be stupid like I was. You’re smarter than I am, Skye, it’s one of the things I’ve always loved about you.”

“That I’m smarter than you?”

Her lips curve upwards and her eyes light up, and Coulson thinks there are very few things he wouldn’t do to keep that look on her face for a little longer.

“You know you are. And you know I need you here.”

“You’re just trying to keep me here,” she accuses him, and Coulson rolls his eyes.

“Yes, I thought that was clear. This is me saying to you, ‘Skye, I need you here.’”

“Even if I think I should go.”

“Do you have a reason, yet? A reason that’s for yourself? Because I think I can speak for every single person on this base when I say that we will accept any risks of having you here.”

Skye doesn’t answer, but picks up the cookie cutters again and begins to lay them out to look at the options.

“Do you have a reason for me to stay?”

“Besides the fact that I need you?”

“As what?”

Coulson sets down the rolling pin

“As the head of the Welcome Wagon.”

“So this is purely professional on your part?”

To be honest, he’s expected her to be a lot more pleased at his offer and he frowns at her question.

“No. You know you’re special to me.”

Her eyes narrow as she watches him, and he gets almost lightheaded at the prospect of having to explain to her exactly what that means. Because the answer is that he doesn’t know exactly what that means. It’s a question he’s learned to dodge in his own mind: how he feels about Skye. (How often he masturbates to the memory of last Christmas.)

He’s too keenly aware that whatever it is that they’ve been doing — this close relationship they have, coupled with a sexual awareness that makes it something much different than any mentor relationship he’s ever known before — has been attracting raised eyebrows from May. And after he followed her down under San Juan...

Skye doesn’t ask him, though. Instead, she nods as though it’s enough that he’s acknowledged that there  _is_ something personal.

He watches as she presses a pine tree cookie cutter into the dough, alternating right side up and upside down. These are her favorite shape, he remembers from last year — her favorite to decorate but also her favorite to eat because of the way all the corners get slightly crispy in the oven.

“I’m not sure I can be any use to you or to SHIELD when I feel like I’m a constant danger to myself and others.”

He laughs, actually laughs, at that and shakes his head.

“Remember who you’re talking to,” he suggests, and Skye rolls her eyes.

“Maybe this is me being smarter than you. Maybe getting away is the smarter option.”

“It’s not, though. You just put yourself in more danger, you just make all of us worry, you just take yourself away from the people who can help you.”

“Can you help me?”

“If you let me in, Skye, I’ll do my best. And if you talk to Simmons —”

“I know.” She drops the christmas tree shape after pressing out the final tree form in the dough. “I’m scared.”

He reaches to lay a hand on her arm, but catches himself before he makes contact and draws his hand backwards.

“It’s okay,” she tells him, leaning towards him so that his hand falls on her upper arm. They both look down and watch as he rubs from her elbow to her shoulder before letting his hand fall away.

“Let’s get the cookies in the oven,” he suggests, and Skye nods as they turn to the counter in front of them. He stands closer to her and lets his hands brush against hers as they peel away the excess dough and move the cookies onto baking sheets. 

He turns away long enough to slide the trays into the oven, and when he turns back, she finally looks ready to really talk.

“I need to figure out how to control this,” she tells him. “What if my best bet for that is with…”

Coulson nods through his frown.

“I know that after what happened it sounds stupid, he’s not a  _good_ guy, but —”

“Maybe he’s not a totally bad guy, either,” he offers.

“He tried to kill you,” Skye breaks in, and he’s not sure whether she’s arguing with him or herself.

“Your relationship with your father has nothing to do with your relationship with me, Skye. I want you to have that, if you think it’s something that will be good for you.”

“But you don’t want me to leave.”

“If you tell me that you want to leave because you want to find your father, I can be okay with that. I just want to make sure that you’re not leaving out of fear.”

She nods, and Coulson watches as she runs her hands over her arms.

“I’m scared,” she admits. “It’s like, suddenly I’m...dangerous.”

“The sooner you get comfortable with yourself, the easier it will be to feel in control.”

“You say that like you have some personal experience.”

“I’ve worked with the Avengers,” Coulson defends himself, “and with some other gifted individuals.” Skye looks skeptical, and Coulson sighs. “When I was carving, the hardest thing was to feel like my body was mine — it was finding a way to feel in control of myself even when I wasn’t. It was hard not to feel like my body was my enemy.”

“That’s how I feel,” Skye admits. “Like I didn’t ask for this, and I don’t want it, and —”

Coulson cuts her off with a soft hand on her elbow. When she doesn't panic at the touch, he uses it to draw her closer.

“You can do amazing things, Skye. You can make this a part of you if you just get past your fear.”

He draws her close enough to kiss her and slides his hand up behind her neck, drawing her in, but stops with a breath between them.

“Coulson,” she breathes his name against his lips, and he remembers the last time he kissed her — a whole year ago, now.

“You’re amazing,” he whispers before Skye pushes forward and kisses him, soft and slow, until she has to pull back to breathe. “You’re a miracle, Skye.”

He wants, more than anything, to make her see herself like he sees her — like a goddamn superhero, like one of the most gorgeous women he’s ever met, like the accomplished field agent who has already saved the lives of her whole team. He wants her to see her body as a good thing, not a source of fear and danger.

She kisses him again, pressing her whole body against his as her lips become more demanding, and he groans at the press of her tongue against his.

“You’re so perfect,” he whispers against her mouth, “Let me show you.”

Her knees go weak as his hands explore the planes of her torso, and Coulson lowers them both to the floor. If there’s a passing thought that he’d like to get to a bedroom — or even a couch — it’s drowned out by the pressing feeling of urgency that builds between them.

He tugs off her sweater and the thin shirt beneath it and then slides both layers under her head before pulling off Skye’s bra. There’s a long pause as he takes in the sight of her, topless on the kitchen floor, and his first thought is that he wishes he had gotten to see her like  _this_ last year. His second thought, though, is to draw her nipple into his mouth.

Skye’s hand rakes through his hair as he slides his mouth across her chest and then down. He pauses over the gunshot wounds on her stomach — pink puckered spots that make him think back to what it was like to lose her.

“I need you with me,” he whispers to her stomach, and the only sign that Skye hears it is the tensing of her abdomen under his mouth. Coulson quickly moves forward, though, fussing with the button and zipper on her jeans and tugging them down — pausing to pull of her socks and shoes.

Once he’s got her jeans and underwear off, he wastes no time pushing up between her legs and pressing his tongue against her clit. Skye moans and parts her legs more for him, digging her heels into his back as he sets a firm, quick rhythm.

Her hand finds the back of his head again, another point of contact between them as he tries to drive her over the edge. The feel of her fingers in his hair, against his scalp, makes him even harder. Just a little bit of stimulation would be enough to get him off, he thinks.

“ _Coulson_ ,” she pants his name, and he can tell she’s getting close as her thighs tense and then press against either side of his head. It’s — not surprisingly — really hot to be trapped between Skye’s bare thighs.

He feels it in her whole body — the tensing of her thighs on his ears, the curling of her fingers into his hair, the pulsing of her clit under his tongue — as she comes. He keeps his mouth against her until she relaxes a little against him, but when he pulls back, it’s only to press first one and then two fingers inside of her.

Skye gasps at the stretch and then flexes her hips against Coulson’s hand as he starts to move his fingers inside of her. She’s louder this way — maybe because of the penetration or maybe because he’s chasing the waves of her orgasm — but it makes it harder to keep from pressing himself into the ground, seeking some form of stimulation as he drives her higher.

It’s a bit shocking when Skye’s hand moves to the back of his neck and pulls him up. At first he thinks she wants him to stop, but she moans in loud disappointment when he slows his fingers.

“Kiss me,” she begs him, and Coulson’s cock practically pulses at the sound.

He keeps his fingers moving inside of her, crooked and pressing upwards, as he slides up her body to cover her mouth with his. She moans into their kiss as he begins to thrust his fingers into her, and the new sensation clearly drives her wild.

Coulson, meanwhile, presses himself against her hip, practically dry humping her even as he fingers her.

When Skye comes, it’s with an open-mouthed silent scream and her head tilted back on the floor. The feel of her coming around his fingers is what sets Coulson off, pulsing against her hip, even through his pants.

“Fuck, Skye,” he grunts into her neck as they both come down.

“That was amazing,” she sighs into the top of his head, and Coulson smiles as he turns to kiss her once more.

They are interrupted, though, by the smoke detector, which begins bleating out a high pitched beep at the cookies burning in the oven.

“Fuck,” he sighs as he pulls back and realizes for the first time how bad the smoke has gotten. Coulson struggles to his feet to remove the ruined cookies from the oven as Skye dresses herself and runs to turn on the fan and flush out the room.

Once the room is habitable again, Skye smiles at him — more wide and easy and real than anything he’s seen from her in weeks — and he returns it, glad that he could help.

“Want to try again?” She holds out another ball of refrigerated dough, and he nods his agreement. He’s not sure if it’s surprising or not — or even disappointing — that they so easily go back to being comfortable with each other. There’s very little lingering awkwardness, even though a part of him desperately wants to push it.

But even if part of him doesn’t  _want_ things to go back to normal, they do — easily. Skye teases him as they bake and decorate dozens of cookies, and even if he’s a little disappointed, it’s impossible to regret a return to normality. Not when it means Skye is smiling and playful in a way she hasn’t been since before everything happened in San Juan.


	3. Christmas 2015

**Christmas 2015**

Skye pushes the cart as Coulson walks just slightly behind her, grabbing the items she directs him towards. He’s just thunked eight pounds of flour into the cart, watching Skye grin at him from her spot behind the handle, when he shakes his head and surveys the excess of baking materials they’ve already chosen.

“There’s no point in telling you this is too much, is there?”

“Tradition,” she claims. Her smile is easy and flirtatious, and the fact is that Coulson has a hard time saying no to her any average day, but when she looks at him like that?

He’s lucky she’s not asking him to directly make a fool of himself. Because he would.

“I suppose everyone else enjoys the extra cookies when they get back.”

Skye nods.

“Plus, I’m going to eat at least a dozen tonight.”

“A dozen?” He raises an eyebrow at her.

“ _At least_. I’ll just have to find a way to work off the calories.”

Her smirk is  _wicked_ before she turns back to the cart and heads to the registers, and Coulson swallows at the suggestion. The knowledge that her swaying hips are  _meant_ to tease him doesn’t stop him from being unable to unglue his eyes from her ass as he follows her.

“How do you plan on getting that workout?”

“That’s another tradition, isn’t it?” She throws back her comment as she gets in line, and Coulson is so flustered that he can just barely manage to help her empty the cart onto the belt at the register.

In truth, he’s probably thought about Skye  _like that_ most every day for the past year. There’s never been a time when he didn’t think of her  _like that_ , but since last Christmas it’s become this constant  _craving_ for her. Which means he’s not sure whether to be excited for the chance to have her again, or dreading tomorrow when it will be over.

It’s entirely possible that this isn’t something he can handle.

  


—

  


They’re relatively quiet as they go through cookie preparations. An air of awkwardness hangs over them, which Coulson is relatively certain is all his fault.

The first batch of cookies is ready for the oven when Skye stops him.

“Maybe we shouldn’t start those, yet.”

He remembers the smell of burning cookies that accompanied the last two times he had sex and almost laughs. Except that he also thinks of all the mornings he’s woken up by himself, and of how he wants so much  _more_ from her than sex on the kitchen floor at Christmas.

“I’m not sure I can do this.”

She raises an eyebrow at him and he’s sure she’s about to shoot a clever comeback at him, but her smile falls when their eyes meet.

“You’re serious.”

“Yes,” Coulson nods, and Skye looks at her shoes before she picks up the trays of cookies and slides them into the oven. She sets the timer as she turns back to him silently, and however awkward it was in the room before, it’s ten times more awkward now.

Skye hitches herself up onto a part of the counter that isn’t covered with flour.

“I didn’t mean to —”

“You’ve done nothing wrong,” he cuts her off. “Nothing.”

“Being with you the last two years has been…” She trails off thoughtfully, and Coulson steps towards her.

“Has been what?”

“Amazing?” She blushes and dips her eyes down to where she picks at an invisible piece of lint on her knee. “I can’t help but want more.”

“That’s exactly the problem. I can’t… I can’t be with you and not  _be_ with you.”

“ _Oh_ ,” Skye breathes, something like hope coloring her tone as she looks back up into his eyes. It makes his heart beat faster in anticipation, but then Skye frowns. “But we can’t do that.”

“Says who?”

“SHIELD protocol?”

“I can change SHIELD protocol,” he answers dismissively, and she laughs.

“You’re going to change SHIELD protocol for me?”

She says it like it’s something romantic and not something he’s already done, and he doesn’t  _mean_ to step closer, but Coulson finds himself between her knees so that they’re eye to eye — except that Skye is slightly taller than him when she’s sitting on the counter.

“I’m the director,” he answers instead, a little bit too much swagger in his words but he can’t help it when Skye is looking at him like  _that_. “Who’s going to stop me?”

He cuts off her laughter by covering her lips with his, and Skye responds immediately, scooting forward on the counter to press herself against him. Kissing her is even better than he had remembered, which is saying a lot because he has remembered it fondly. And often.

Skye is the first one to pull back, though Coulson is drawn almost helplessly forward by the sight of her hooded eyes and swollen lips.

“I’m in love with you, you know?” Her voice shakes only slightly on the admission, and Coulson’s hands slide up from her thighs to cup her face. “I have been...forever.”

“Me, too.”

Skye smiles, like she appreciates hearing it but also knows it isn’t true, and Coulson tilts her chin upwards when she tries to drop her eyes from his.

“I didn’t admit it to myself until San Juan,” he tells her. “It was there before that, but that day…”

“San Juan?”

He can’t tell whether her disbelief is because it means he’s been knowingly in love with her for over a year or whether it’s that his realization was connected to one of the worst days of his life. Of their lives.

“I would follow you into hell.”

It feels less like an explanation and more like a vow, but he thinks Skye understands it perfectly well.

“I would do anything for you, to keep you safe,” she answers back, and he thinks back to Skye barging into his own private hell, pulling him out of his suicidal memories. That was also the first time anything sexual happened between them, and he remembers the way she deflected it — the way she told him it was just for him, only for him.

Coulson kisses her again, keeping her face cupped gently in his palms.

“Without levels, it’s much easier to allow for fraternization. Less worries about nepotism and inappropriate behavior by supervisors.”

“Is that why you did it?”

“You know exactly why I did it,” he counters before kissing her again, slow and deep and dirty.

Skye is the one that pushes things forward by stripping off his shirts, and he follows her lead by tugging her shirt over her head and stepping back so she can wiggle out of her bra.

When she’s naked from the waist up, Coulson pushes himself against her, savoring the feel of skin on skin as they kiss again. Skye sighs into his mouth, but her hands are busy at his belt, and she’s got her hand wrapped around his cock before Coulson has even touchd her breasts.

“Eager,” he grunts into her mouth.

“I told you,” she answers, “I have plans.”

“What comes next in your plans?”

“You get rid of my jeans and fuck me on the counter.”

She accompanies her words with a slow stroke of his cock, letting her fingers dance over the sensitive underside, and Coulson groans into her shoulder before moving too quickly to strip off Skye’s jeans. He fumbles at the button, but she’s helpful enough to slide off of the counter and toe off her shoes as she helps him get her jeans down and off. Coulson takes a little more time with her panties, running his fingers over her hip bones and around her ass before stripping them off and lifting her back up onto the counter.

He presses his fingers between her thighs and groans at how wet she is.

“Christ, Skye,” he mumbles against her lips as he kisses her and pushes two fingers inside. She moans and rocks herself against his hand, but then pushes him back in frustration.

“Fuck me, Coulson.”

The sound of her voice — of Skye saying  _that_  —  is like something straight out of his fantasies. It is, in fact, literally something from his fantasies, and he has to take a moment to appreciate the fact that this is real. That  _she_ is real.

“Like this?” He asks as he tugs her ass to the front of the counter and helps her lift her legs to wrap high around his hips. His cock presses against her, and they both groan.

“Yes,” she answers as she reaches between them to position him. Coulson pushes forward, trying to go slow, but Skye’s feet pull him towards her faster so that he pushes into her hard and almost too fast.

“Fuck,” he grunts at the sensation of being buried inside of her — the depth of penetration is almost shocking in and of itself. He stays still, trying to gather himself, but he can feel how impatient Skye is against him.

“Please,” she begs him as she tries to move, though her position on the countertop makes it impossible to do more than barely rock. “Coulson.”

He nods and starts to thrust — deep and hard and fast — while Skye angles herself against him and squeezes her legs tightly around his waist. It’s almost too much for him — it’s been over three years since he last did this, after all — and he drops his head to her shoulder as he keeps the pace she seems to like best. It’s a struggle, though, not to immediately come just from the feeling of being inside of her.

“Don’t stop,” Skye begs him, and he can feel her starting to shake around him — not coming, yet, but so close.

Just when he thinks he’s about to lose it, the timer on the oven saves him. It’s startling enough to pull him back from the edge of orgasm, while Skye seems almost oblivious to it.

She finally comes, quiet and open mouthed with her head tossed back, and Coulson tumbles after her, shuddering against her body with his face still buried in her neck.

It’s intense — more intense than he remembers sex being, but then he doesn’t remember sex that well. Still, he’s barely caught his breath when the sound of the oven timer infringes again.

“You should get that,” Skye whispers against the top of his head, and he nods, but takes the time to kiss her neck several times before pulling away.

“Isn’t burning some cookies part of the tradition?”

“Yeah, but that’s one of the parts I can do without.”

He smiles into her neck in silent agreement.

Coulson finally pulls out and pauses for just long enough to step out of his pants, still around his ankles, and shoes before turning to the oven. He’s careful in his nudity as he opens the door while grabbing the oven mitts from the closest drawer.

“Maybe the new tradition can involve going to the bedroom while the first batch of cookies cools,” Skye suggests, and Coulson laughs lightly as he sets down the trays of cookies on the stovetop.

“Your expectations of my abilities might be too high.”

“Hmm, no.” She shakes her head, and Coulson watches as she trails a hand down her stomach and between her legs. “I remember your abilities really well.”

Coulson groans at her statement and drops any plan of moving the cookies to a cooling rack. Instead, he grasps Skye’s hand and tugs her off the counter to head back to his bedroom.

“We still have to bake more cookies later, though,” she reminds him.

“Because you’re going to eat a dozen of them.”

“ _At least_ a dozen,” she corrects.

“Then I guess we have a lot of calories to work off.”

She laughs and darts ahead of him towards his sleeping quarters, and Coulson only pauses long enough to turn off the oven until they’re ready for it again.

 


End file.
